http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Passover  the Jewish celebration of freedom and G-d's dominion which
begins on Saturday night  provides a timely insight into the foundations
of Jewish faith and human nature.

Jews believe in a G-d without form. The Jewish G-d is ineffable. To Abraham
himself, G-d appeared only in visions, never in the "flesh."

And yet, the story of G-d's deliverance of the Children of Israel from
Egyptian bondage is packed with physical proofs of this consummately
non-physical G-d. G-d exposes Himself to Moses in the burning bush. And
then, from Moses' first appeal to Pharaoh through the parting of the Red
Sea, G-d exposes Himself and His mastery of the universe and all that is in
it again and again, in progressively powerful ways.

At the Passover Seder, Jews recount these astounding manifestations of G-d's
existence, presence and dominion. That is, at the Passover Seder, Jews
celebrate the physical manifestations of the G-d we know to be formless and
ubiquitous.

Why would G-d feel the need to reveal Himself? And why do Jews, who accept
an ineffable G-d place so much stress on His self-revelation?

By our nature, human beings are skeptical. Before we believe something, we
require proof. Whether that proof is collateral for a bank loan, burning a
bush without harming it, laying waste to Pharaoh's Egypt or parting the Red
Sea, the fact is that without proof, humans will not long believe. To
convince the Children of Israel to accept Him and His laws throughout time,
G-d showed us signs and wonders in Egypt that were powerful enough to keep
us united as His people ever since.

Contrast this natural human skepticism and the Jews' reasoned faith in G-d
with the international and Israeli Left's engineered credulousness and blind
faith in Peace.

This week, former US president Jimmy Carter arrived in the Middle East on a
"peace mission." Shunned by Israel's senior political leadership for his
overtly hostile positions towards Israel and Jews, Carter had to suffice
with a public dressing down for his incendiary anti-Israel rhetoric from
otherwise friendly, and "pro-Peace" President Shimon Peres, and visits with
Israeli doves affiliated with the non-Zionist Meretz party.

From Israel, Carter continued to the Fatah-led, Israeli defended Palestinian
Authority in Ramallah where he laid a wreath at the grave of arch-murderer
and master terrorist Yassir Arafat, and hugged and kissed Arafat's Fatah and
Hamas heirs. Both visits, of course were conducted against the backdrop of
Carter's well-publicized plan to meet Hamas terror master and Iranian proxy
Khaled Mashaal in Syria.

By meeting with Mashaal, Carter is arguably breaching US law which prohibits
American citizens from assisting terror groups. His planned meeting elicited
criticism from the Bush Administration. His radicalism fomented Israel's
informal, but fairly firm boycott of his visit. And yet, his faith in Peace
being what it is, Carter brushed off his critics as men and women of little
faith. For their part, Carter's Israeli allies, Yossi Beilin, David Kimche
and their fellow believers in Peace embraced him. These Israelis, like
Carter are not averse to meeting with Hamas.

The fact is, while Carter may be the loudest proponent of negotiating with
Hamas, he is far from alone. To advance this view in America, Carter's
Jewish American and Israeli fellow believers just set up a new lobbying
group in Washington. It is staffed by former Clinton administration, Peace
Now, and Democratic Party officials. It is supported by the Israeli
signatories to Yossi Beilin's European-financed 2003 Geneva "peace accord"
with the Palestinian Authority's former propaganda minister Yassir Abd Rabo.
The new lobby, "J Street," is tasked with financing the campaigns of
American politicians who are willing to sacrifice the US alliance with
Israel in the interest of Peace. Presumably, it is conversely tasked with
scuttling the political fortunes of US politicians who refuse to do so.

It is hard to know what to make of either the Bush administration's
criticism of Carter, or for that matter the Olmert-Livni-Barak government's
shunning of the former president. Legal restrictions on maintaining contacts
with terror operatives aside, Carter's hostility to Israel and his
enthusiastic embrace of Hamas are the logical outcome of their own
policies. Indeed, several government ministers from Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert's and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's Kadima party have expressed
willingness to engage Hamas. And at present, through Egypt and Fatah leader
Mahmoud Abbas, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government is negotiating with Hamas
towards a temporary ceasefire which would leave the Hamas regime in Gaza
intact and armed.

The basic belief that informs both the Olmert-Livni-Barak government and the
Bush administration is the same as Carter's. Namely, they believe that the
Palestinian war against Israel is the consequence of Palestinian
statelessness. Then too, both governments accept the Arab and European
assertion that the lack of Palestinian statehood is the root cause of the
Arab and Islamic world's rejection of Israel's right to exist and of the
larger pathologies of the jihad supporting Arab and Islamic world.

This basic ideological premise has been the core belief of the Israeli and
American policymaking classes since the advent of the Israeli-PLO "peace
process" in 1993. And in light of this premise it is hard to see how the
official boycott of Hamas is sustainable or even logical. The belief that
the root cause of all the Middle East's troubles is a lack of Palestinian
sovereignty generally, and more specifically the view that Israel's
continued control over areas it secured during the third Arab war against
Israel is the root of the conflict, renders Israel solely responsible for
resolving the conflict. It is Israel, after all that is blocking Palestinian
control over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. It is Israel that is putting up
obstacles to Palestinian sovereignty.

This is the view that informed Israel's 1993 decision to embrace the
mass-murdering father of modern terrorism Yassir Arafat and his PLO as the
sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. It was this view
that caused Israel to turn a blind eye to Arafat's transformation of
Palestinian society into the most jihadist society in the Arab world through
the constant indoctrination of his official Palestinian media organs,
education systems and mosques.

It is this view that still brings Israel's leaders to refer to Judea and
Samaria as "occupied;" to negotiate the partition of Jerusalem; to
illegalize Jewish building in Judea and Samaria and limit Jewish building in
Jerusalem; to demonize Jewish opponents of their view as "extremists" and
"enemies of peace;" and to ignore the need to defend the Western Negev from
the Palestinian missile campaign in Gaza.

It is this view that causes Israel's leaders to embrace Arafat's successor
and deputy of forty years Mahmoud Abbas as a "peace partner" while turning a
blind eye to his open support for terror and Israel's violent destruction;
his Fatah party's deep involvement in terror attacks against Israel; his
financial support for terrorists and families of jailed and dead terrorists;
and his operational ties to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Syria, and Iran.

It is this view that has caused the US to treat Israeli communities in Judea
and Samaria as moral equivalents of terrorism; to support the establishment
of a Palestinian state that will be ethnically cleansed of all Jews; to
pressure Israel to allow pro-terror Palestinian militias to deploy in Judea
and Samaria and curtail its counter-terror operations; to provide financial,
military and political support to pro-terror Palestinian militias; and to
pressure Israel stop building homes for Jews in Jerusalem.

And of course, it is this view that renders the US and Israel's current
boycott of Hamas unsustainable and illogical. If Israel is to blame for the
lack of Palestinian statehood, then nothing the Palestinians believe or do
is relevant. The organizational separation of Hamas from Fatah is
irrelevant. Hamas's subservience to Iran is irrelevant. Just as is the case
with Fatah, so too, Hamas's embrace of terror as a means of advancing
Israel's complete destruction is not a reason to boycott it. It is
blameless. Carter is right.

To maintain their belief in Peace through Israeli capitulation as a panacea
for all the Middle East's deformities, Peace adherents have been forced to
replace their natural skepticism with artificial credulity. For in contrast
to the Children of Israel in Pharaoh's Egypt, not only have they received no
evidence that their faith in Peace is reasonable, they have seen in the
terrorist murder of more than 1,500 Israelis since 1993and in the daily
incitement for Israel's destruction and massing of Palestinian terror armies
of jihad overwhelming proof that their faith is unfounded. Indeed, just this
week, Israel Radio reported that Abbas was planning to bestow the highest
official PA honors on two female terrorist murderers jailed in Israeli
prisons.

Actually, the story about Abbas' plan to publicly embrace mass murderers
is instructive of how the blind faith in Peace has been maintained now for
15 years. The Israel Radio broadcast forced the Olmert-Livni-Barak
government for the first time to acknowledge Abbas' support for terrorists
and so placed in question the rationality of their entire policy of
capitulating for Peace. At their insistence Abbas announced he was
canceling the awards. But as Prof. Mordechai Keidar from Bar Ilan
University pointed out in a radio interview Wednesday, the only thing
extraordinary about Abbas' planned ceremony was that it was reported by the
Israeli media. The PA has been annually bestowing its highest honors on
jailed mass murderers. It's just that the flock of Peace faithful who run
Israel's media have never reported the story before.

Yet, in spite of its leadership's and media's attempts to hide the truth
from them, the Israel public has insisted on maintaining its natural
skepticism and limiting its faith to its revealed G-d. Tel Aviv University's
monthly Peace Index, which surveys the Israeli public's views on issues
relating to the "peace process," showed that despite the government's and
media's pro-Peace rhetoric and attempts to obfuscate reality, the majority
of Israeli Jews have not accepted their views. The majority of Israeli Jews
view Judea and Samaria as "liberated" rather than "occupied" territories.
They do not believe that signing a peace treaty with the Palestinians will
bring peace, and they oppose destroying the Israeli communities in Judea and
Samaria. A poll of the public's views of the government's plans to negotiate
the partition of Jerusalem taken this week by Bar Ilan's Begin-Sadat Center
showed that 71 percent of Israelis oppose partitioning Jerusalem and ceding
the Old City to the Palestinians.

All told then, Passover's lesson of reasoned faith in the true revealed G-d
over blind faith in a false G-d has not been lost on the Jews. And the
celebration of faith and freedom that Passover embodies should instill us
with certainty that one day soon, our leaders who uphold the irrational
belief in fake Peace will be replaced by others who reject it.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.